


Double Shot of Stress

by theinvalidedsoldier



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Deadpool being Deadpool, Fluff, Humour, Identity Reveal, M/M, Peter Works in a Cafe, Teasing, Wade Being Wade, peter is 19
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-08 08:19:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15239259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theinvalidedsoldier/pseuds/theinvalidedsoldier
Summary: In which Peter's shitty day working at a cafe becomes decidedly more stressful when a certain patrol buddy of his shows up, prying, as usual.





	1. Alter Ego

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not really sure where I was going with this, and I'm not exactly sure what I plan to happen next, but I'm quite proud of it in retrospect.
> 
> Enjoy!

  When you barely had two cents to rub together, lived predominantly off of instant ramen, and could barely afford your college tuition even  _whilst_ being a part time vigilante by night, you couldn't really afford to be picky about any job offers that come your way. Admittedly, Peter working in a cafe lived up to nearly every broke college student trope, grappling desperately for any tips and minimum wage they can roll in on the daily. But it was definitely better than nothing.

  It was a quaint enough joint, inhabited mostly by elderly women who liked to gossip about which people in their friend group had gotten dentures and what youngsters had fallen pregnant at sixteen etcetera, etcetera. Occasionally there was the odd hipster, with a chunky MacBook Pro and horn rimmed glasses, probably draped in a faux-throw, vegan-friendly and all that. It was those posers that typically had the hardest drinks to make, opting for a triple chai latte with three and a half pumps of soy milk and sugar-free cream or some such shit. 

  Though the pay wasn't terrible, nothing could pay Peter enough for regularly fighting the urge to 'accidentally' trip over a non-existent rug and splash their scalding hot abomination right in their pretentious faces. You could listen to new age Panic! At The Disco, and Jack Garratt without throwing it in everyone's faces. Fact.

  It was tedious work aside from that semi-regular annoyance, Peter got the knack of the complex coffee machine pretty quickly, even earning a small grin from his usually completely stoic, pre-maturely greying drag of a boss. It was mostly serving tables, and pretending to care about calories in pastries for the dieting Grannies and occasionally having to put up with the odd small talk, it was decent enough. But if he were given the opportunity, Peter would be out in a heartbeat. 

  He was discussing with Mr. Stark about getting a legitimate internship at the Tower, so that he could get closer to the action and help around, apparently Tony would, _"think about it."_  which was better than nothing in itself.

  Peter had devised a pretty foolproof system when it came to having a relatively quiet work-day, the hairdresser's technique. Pretend to listen, hum in acknowledgement, comment when appropriate and give them a smile. His youthful grin, and boyish charm was a killer, and nobody seemed to bother him too long with belligerent questions as he would wave them off politely, which seemed to do the trick. What his seemingly triple minimum wage lacked, the tips compensated for, because a little bit of faux-niceness went a long way, apparently. Though, there were some days where Peter was just genuinely in a good mood.

  This was not one of those days. News had spread about the vacancy of the cafe, and that it rarely had even five people in it at a time, so the after-school club from a downtown High School decided to take it upon themselves to show up, order every single pastry, cake and pleasantry off the menu, and proceeded to wreck everything. It was almost as if they were drunk, but then again, most fourteen year olds being let out of school to go to a local cafe were bound to get a little crazy, right? Or was that just how fucked up New York was?

  Three girls had flirted with him, consequentially a group of boys who no doubt had some affinity for said girls, got annoyed and called Peter a "dweeb", though in hindsight there were much worse things he could've been potentially referred to as. At least they were competent enough to stray away from the slurs.

  For a group of eighth graders with stacks of homework and what not, the group of raunchy teenagers took their sweet time leaving the establishment. It was also like they made it their sworn duty to leave said establishment resembling a pig sty. There were chocolate wrappers littering the floor, no doubt it was chocolate they had brought with them, as the cafe didn't sell chocolate bars for that soul purpose. There were empty coffee cups, and an array of chewed up straws littering the wooden floorboards, which were starting to soften and stain from the violent splashes of caramel frappuccino.  

  Peter sighed as he bent down, mopping up each careless bang of a cup up off the ground or collecting each and every meaningless flick of a wrist and putting it all into a plastic bag. He couldn't clock out for another three and a half hours. A groan escaped his lips as he chucked the overflowing bin bag away, silencing himself just in time for the onslaught of the elderly regulars. They never once dared to go to a different cafe on a Friday evening, for whatever reason. Repetition is stability, he supposed.

  "Hello Margaret," Peter chirped, doing his level best to appear unperturbed, though he felt like he was quite literally at his breaking point. The stout woman gave a heart wave from across the room, "How are you today?" 

  "I'm wonderful deary, and how's my favourite young man?" She genuinely was a very nice lady, one of the more tolerable ones from the bunch she usually spent her Friday evenings with.

  She was an unassuming type of woman, opting to not take part in gossip, merely watching with a keen eye as people got themselves into debates about ridiculous affairs. The two of them often shared looks of exasperation from across the room whenever Margaret's devout Christian friend would get fiery about millennials and the ludicrousness of politically correct culture.

  Peter grabbed his trusty rag, wiping down the register and the tables, letting out sigh. "I'm quite tired actually, it's been a long week and all that." He smiled cheekily, earning a disapproving click of the tongue from his favourite sassy elder.

  "You're much too young to be stressing about the small stuff, Peter dear, you have such a bright future ahead of you," She picked out a large cupcake with dark blue icing for her unusually vacant table.

  "You're such a handsome fellow too, wait until you see, everything'll fall into place soon enough." Peter felt his ears starting to go red, he rung up the cupcake in a flurry of flustered apologies, the two of them giggling as he tapped the wrong buttons. Margaret left a hearty tip as always, seeming to understand that those were hard to come by, quite literally a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. 

  He always had found her little words of wisdom to be a constant source of joy for him. She meant well, of course, but the sheer irony of her sweeping statements never failed to make Peter smile. Granted, he definitely was  _'much too young to be stressing about the small stuff."_  yet his alter ego as a web-slinging, crime-fighting, part-arachnid definitely left much to be imagined when it came to the small stuff. He found that with battling aliens, crime lords and lowlifes alike, Peter was actually stressing about the big stuff. A small boy stressing the big stuff, fitting. 

  The second onslaught of customers arrived, a few elderly men after church or middle-aged women meeting up with long lost friends, the usual trivial Friday night droll. Surprisingly, the cafe was still a bit of a mess, and he could distinctly hear complaints from said grumpy church-goers about his,  _"sheer incompetence."_ because of a few drops of tea on their table. He rushed over in a bustle, his startlingly bright smile not wooing the impatient bats. Peter's mood was starting to take a turn for the freeway down the road of sheer frustration and agitation, as his mood hadn't been particularly bright to begin with.

  The complaining had, thankfully, started to die down. There was a loud chatter echoing throughout the room, a surprising capacity of people considering that it was nearing nine o'clock at night. He hoped that that meant more tips for him, he wasn't exactly dying to get home to his six packets of chicken instant ramen and graham crackers. He grumbled as the next few customers left measly tips, the coffee was cheap, it wasn't too much to ask for. He did it underneath his breath however, not wanting to give the old farts another reason to simply dislike his general existence.

   He turned away, annoyed by the chattering crowds groaning about grandkids. He wiped down the grimy surface with fierce intention, somebody behind Peter was rambling, he had learned this far long in the job to simply tune it out. Unless they were directly ordering something, why should Peter have to listen? He just barely caught the last words of the voice going off on a tangent.

  "- And do you even think about how much money you'd make if the citizens of New York knew that  _Spider-Man_ was working here?" Peter froze, hand going still as he stopped scrubbing abruptly. He swivelled on the spot, praying to every known deity that said unidentified voice was not in fact ringing every alarm bell of recognition in his brain and that it was a mere coincidence, perhaps he had imagined it.

  "I'm sorry?" Was the polite response. Peter came face to face with a leering grin he recognised instantaneously. Evidently not quickly enough to camoflauge his surprise, however. He was staring at the all too familiar expressive leather black and red mask without even realising. _Fuck. Deadpool._

"Oh, you should be baby boy. You can't possibly imagine the digging I had to do to find you," The merc at the counter leaned forward, "And to think you were hiding  _this_ gorgeous face from me. Scandalous!"

  "I'm sorry, but do I know you?" He had mustered up what he had hoped was an undetected nonchalance, cool and casual, though he could feel his exterior crumbling with each tilt of the head thrown his way from his patrol partner who was most certainly  _not_ supposed to be there talking to an unmasked Spider-Man as if they were best friends. 

  "Awh, that's adorable. Playing innocent, ya lil' pup?" Wade was laughing at him, but in the type of way that an unabashed adult does when they've caught their kid with their face in the cookie jar. "So you're not  _Peter Parker,_ then?" It was an innocent enough enquiry, one that Peter would've- should've been able to deflect easily, god knows, his skills of deception were surely up to par. But he could steadily feel his face heating up, his hand grabbing at an empty mug, scrubbing it viciously with a rag.

  "I think that one's already clean Petey," Wade leant forward even more, he was practically draped across the counter now, his chest just touching the till. "Or should I say,  _Spidey_ _?_ " Peter choked on a large huff of air, nearly letting the mug clatter to the ground. Wade's obtuse manner of speaking never failing to shock. Man, he did not know how beat around the bush. Peter looked behind Deadpool's ever so broad figure, nobody at their tables seemed to be paying the slightest bit of attention to the masked vigilante sucking the will to live out of the barista.

  "I don't know what you're talking about," Peter said, giving himself an internal high five when his voice did not waver. "But if you're not going to order anything then I'm going to have to ask you to get  _off_ the counter." He pointedly raised his eyebrows, gesturing towards the fact that Wade's spandex clad body was practically on top of the marble surface that point. Wade raised his arms in mock surrender, but stayed firmly put, draped exactly where he was.

  "How much for you?" His tone was conversational, casual. There was not a shadow of a doubt in his mind, that if Peter were drinking at that moment, he would've done a spit-take all over Margaret's new shoes. Which she was apparently very fond of. He spluttered out a cough of air, nonetheless. "What?"

  "I just wanna wrap you up in a bow and bring you home with me, Petey Pie. Not without your explicit consent, of course." It wasn't hard to tell that behind the mask Wade was winking, rather obnoxiously in fact. Peter's jaw was practically at his knees, he didn't think it was possible for the human body to get so excruciatingly hot in such a short period of time. His ears were what sparked it, a roaring fire licking at his face and down at his neck.

  Wade was smirking.  _Jesus Christ,_ he wanted to smack that smug smirk of his face with every morsel of his super strength, though that might've been precisely what the merc was aiming for.

  Peter cleared his throat testily as Wade started to extricate his muscular body off the countertop, finally. He was humming something that he didn't recognise. But Peter knew all too well from his patrols with the merc himself, that he only hummed in that tone when he was truly delighted. Which meant nothing but misery for Peter.

  "Okay, no heartfelt admission today? Cool, cool. I guess I'll have to wait another shitty chapter, that  _nobody_ asked for until you decide to trust me honey bunch." Peter didn't understand half of what Wade had said, but took to shaking his head, not really knowing what to say at all. Wade turned to leave, before halting so abruptly that he  _finally_ got the attention of the herds of gossipers of the cafe. With his back turned to the counter, he started to rifle through all of the hundreds of pouches he no doubt had strapped to the suit. With a yelp and a happy huff, Deadpool was turning back around, a crisp twenty dollar bill in his hand.

  "That lady was right by the way, ' _such a handsome fellow'_ indeed _._ You need to stop sweating the small stuff, and start sweating the big stuff." His gloved hands made an obscene gesture, the insinuation not lost on anyone in the room, scandalised gasps echoing against the walls. "Shut the fuck up, Whitey. It did make sense!"

  And with that, Deadpool was dropping the twenty into Peter's tip jar, ignoring the horrified glares being sent his way as he paraded out of the cafe. It was dead silent, his departure had knocked everyone stark still.

  Peter heard a snort, he looked around, eyes darting through the small clusters of people, to find dearest Margaret wiping tears from her half-moon spectacles as she heaved with silent laughter.

 


	2. Rainbow Sprinkles

  Peter didn't know how anything had managed to grasp the attention so intensely of such a fickle, hyperactive lunatic; but Wade, dressed head to toe in his Deadpool getup, kept coming back to the cafe that he worked at. 

  Peter hadn't had a team-up with Deadpool since his untimely introduction into his personal life, and wasn't all to keen to see the mess of a man in any foreseeable future.

  The second time, a few days after the first merc visit that became known by his good friend Margaret as his 'Appraisal Day', was an ordinarily dull day, like most. Some of the more regular customers that were unfortunately present during his patrol buddy's declaration of affection, had stopped coming to the cafe. They instead opted to spread the news to a community of similarly dull elders about the delinquent that disturbed their Friday night supper, the story accompanied with a grim tone and an expression of nausea. Clearly, the ersatz homoeroticism didn't help the case either, evidently, the old hags were sickeningly old fashioned and homophobic. Their loss. 

  Peter had been serving a skinny housewife in her mid-forties, the specifications coming from the guessing game Peter had come up with when trying to amuse himself during a tedious day when his second visit from the dear black-and-red occurred.

  Her hair had been dyed an alarming shade of bleach blonde an array of times, the roots of her hair being the dead giveaway. She donned the cheap pearls, and snootiness that not many tended to brandish along the outskirts of Queens, yet her supercilious aura was her most defining feature. He had served her a cherry pastry, one that she had originally turned her nose up at - _literally -_ until coming to the loud conclusion that not many of the other offerings had much to offer either. 

  "You have a nice day ma'am," Peter chimed with a broad grin, yet the faux enthusiasm gained him no tip. Fantastic. Incoherent ramblings that were indecipherable to even himself spewed from the college student's mouth. Could the broke college student really get no leeway?

  He was halfway through an insult about her tacky, knock-off Gucci slides when his Spidey-Sense tingled in fierce alarm. If he were a cat, his ears would've perked up, as a presence entered the cafe that Peter immediately recognised.  _Not again._

Black and red spandex sashayed in the glass door with a swivel of burly hips. It was positively hilarious, but the odd twist in Peter's gut begged to differ. He immediately turned away, avoiding direct eye contact, back facing the incoming nuisance. He busied himself with cleaning out the espresso machine and attempted to block out his surroundings as rigorously as possible.  _'Perhaps if I completely dismiss his existence, he'll just go away.'_ No such luck.

  "I don't think I've ever been more wounded in my life," The familiar drawl sounded from directly behind him, Peter's eyes slammed shut. He took a few deep breaths, hoping to gather his composure. Jesus Christ, he was annoying. "You turned your back on me, shut me out, closed yourself off." With a dramatic gush and a gloved hand to his forehead, Deadpool swayed on the spot. 

  "Don't pretend that you don't hear me, sweetums. I don't bite," Wade immediately snorted. "Unless you want me to." 

  What Deadpool could've possibly wanted, was lost on Peter. What he was hoping to get from their non-reciprocal, one-sided conversations, he did not know. An admission, most likely.

  The revelation that the barista at a shitty cafe was in fact, New York's one and only Spider-Man. Peter wouldn't have put it past Wade to use the information against him, blackmail him with the threat of hurting Aunt May in exchange for.. _something_. He wasn't sure if Wade  _actually_ knew, or if he was simply bluffing about the supposed research done to obtain Peter's real name and alibi, but he wasn't taking any chances.

  "Can I help you?" Peter tried to make his voice sound as bored as possible, completely uninterested. This, of course, didn't deter the man whose branding was based solely off of his booming voice box. Deadpool on his hands, once again draping himself across the marble surface, wiggling his brows. 

  "Since you're  _clearly_ off the menu, for now, I'll get the biggest cup of coffee you have. Oh! And, with whipped cream, and rainbow sprinkles," Wade drawled, saying every word in under ten seconds, which most would deem impossible.  Peter sucked in a deep breath through his nose, shutting his eyes as he battled with his patience desperately. "For here, or to go?" He enquired, congratulating himself on keeping it together, and keeping his voice as neutral as humanely possible. Wade let out a lenghty  _'hmm',_ which only seemed to get more and more irritating the longer it lasted. Which was a while. Fourteen seconds.

  "I'll say 'to go', these wrinkly cronuts don't look like they'd appreciate all of this-" He gestured up and down his suit-clad body, "Getting all up in their groove."

  Wade then turned around, and made eye contact with none other than Margaret, who had been sitting in the corner eyeing the exchange with an amused grin. "But not her, now she's just a gem," He quipped, giving a little wave to the elderly lady, he received a feeble yet all-knowing wave back.

  Peter looked between the two, back and forth, wondering why nobody was standing up to comment on the madness. After all, the whole ordeal  _was_  ridiculous in every sense of the word. He shook his head in resignation.  _'Maybe if I make it quickly, he'll just go.'_ And took to the espresso machine in a flurry of movement. The largest cup of coffee in the joint really  _was_ the largest fucking cup of coffee seemingly in the entire world, as it took a minute and a half to grind the beans and pump the milk, cream, and sprinkles. All the while, Peter could feel Deadpool's eyes on him, registering every movement. 

  He very nearly slammed the to-go cup on the table, contemplating on whether or not he should intentionally put the lid on loose, as a scalded arse would've done Wade good. 

  "4.50, please," The tired man-boy just about whispered, eliciting a whistle from the older man. 

  "Hoo Mama, you're hot shit out here working in such an expensive joint, Petey-poo." Peter rolled his eyes, and clenched his jaw. Gloved hands rummaged in one of the hundreds of pouches that littered his suit, snatching a fifty dollar bill out from a mass of coins and tokens. Before he could even hope to interject, Deadpool was skipping out the door, with the extortionately priced coffee in his burly hands. "Keep the change. Thanks so much Spidey, you're a lamb."

  "I'm- I'm not." But the nuisance was now gone sauntering off into the city, and the baffled college student was left standing at the till gawking, his face beet red, with a fifty dollar bill held in his hands.


End file.
